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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24042190">The Weight of the World</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BirdInTheCave/pseuds/BirdInTheCave'>BirdInTheCave</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Good Sibling Number Five | The Boy, Mild Angst, Post-Apocalypse, Protective Number Five | The Boy, Psychological Trauma, Trauma, Vanya Hargreeves Deserves Better, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Vanya really realizes what she did, especially to her favorite sibling, poorly edited</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:13:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,815</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24042190</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BirdInTheCave/pseuds/BirdInTheCave</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Apocalypse has finally been averted but soon after Vanya comes to a terrible realization.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Number Five | The Boy &amp; Vanya Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>328</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Weight of the World</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Initially posted on the TUA Amino.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The tension of the end of the world still hung heavy in the air, pressing down on each member of the Hargreeves household like the entire city had actually collapsed on top of them. But no, life continued on and the rest of the world was none the wiser to just how close it had come to going up in flames.</p><p>It had only been a day, April second finally settling onto the calendar but somehow there was no relief. In fact, Vanya knew the rest of her family was avoiding her like the plague and considering she had been the one to end the world all along she couldn’t exactly blame them. Her stomach still churns when she realizes that she’d slaughtered people, upturned cars with barely a thought and brought the house down on Pogo and Mom just the same.</p><p>Five had fixed it, because of course he did, and it had been like she’d never done those terrible things in the first place but she knew she had. They all knew she had. She’d just been so scared-- so <em>angry</em>-- that when her powers pumped through her veins she latched onto that strength and used it to get back at everyone who had wronged her. The image of her brothers, hanging in air in front of her as she drained them of life, it haunted her every waking thought. She had been so ready to kill them, so uncaring and vindictive. If it hadn’t been for Allison…</p><p>She furiously blinks away the tears that burn in her eyes at the mere thought, hands clenching into tight fists where they rested on top of the dining table. There was nothing she could do to truly fix what she’d done but that didn’t stop her from desperately try to think out of way to mend the broken bonds, to glue back the broken pieces because while before most of her family had not been very inclusive at least they had still talked to her.</p><p>On one hand she knew they needed time and that things could be fixed it she just let them heal, but on the other hand she loathed to think of how long that would take. The last week had somehow been the best and worst week of her life but she hadn’t been <em>alone</em>. Her family had talked to her, Allison and her grew closer than they had ever been before, and though the budding relationship she’d started developing had been manipulative and cruel it had made her happy for the first time in so long. So much of that had slipped through her fingers and no matter how strong she was with these new powers she couldn’t hold on tight enough to keep it all from draining away.</p><p>Allison still talked to her, Five’s impromptu time travelling saving Allison from the slit throat Vanya had righteously delivered, but Luther kept their sister so close that the opportunities the two girls had to talk were so few and far between they practically didn’t exist. Vanya wanted nothing more than the comfort of her sibling, of her family, she wanted it so badly she was beginning to think she’d even take it from Luther if he offered it up.</p><p>She trembles in her seat, vision blurring once again as the tears returned with a vengeance. She grits her teeth and forces down any noise that tries to claw it’s way past her lips, pressed together into a thin, shaky line. She had ended the god damn world and for what? Spite? Revenge? Innocent people got caught up in her blinded quest for retribution, for justice. She had wiped out families, husbands, children. Now, it has been wiped from time like it never existed but she’ll never be able to look at another person again without reminding herself that at one point in her life she had killed them all.</p><p>All but one.</p><p>All but Five.</p><p>She can’t stop the startled sob that explodes from her then, a stray hand flying up to cover her mouth as her eyes blow wide with the sudden realization. Tears leak from horrified eyes, spilling down her pale cheeks and carving salty paths into her skin but she can’t pay them any mind. “Oh God…” The words are muffled behind her hand, a garbled mess of tears and mortification.</p><p>Vanya had been responsible for the apocalypse.</p><p>The Apocalypse that had slaughtered her family, all but one.</p><p>The apocalypse that Five had dedicated his whole life to stopping.</p><p>The Apocalypse that Five had fought to survive in, tooth and nail, for fucking decades.</p><p>She remembers the first night he returned, showing up in her apartment with blood on his collar and a slice deep into his forearm. He had told her how hard it was, that he had to survive off of straps and how his lungs had been destroyed by the ash. The years and years he spent desperately trying to get home to his family. How he desired some sort of human interaction so badly that his mind had resorted to giving a mannequin a name, a personality, a voice.</p><p>She did that him.</p><p>Vanya had created that hell and left him alone to scramble for help, for survival, for company.</p><p>“Oh God.” She echos, feeling every part of her shake uncontrollably. The house trembled with her, quaking as her emotions turned the earth to putty in her hands. The world reacted to her devastation and it moved in tandem. “No, no, no, no, no…” She whispered, the word tumbled from her lips like a twisted mantra. As if begging for the truth not to be real could make it so.</p><p>Five had always been the closest with her. Of all her siblings, he had been the least dismissive, the one to always give her voice the time of day. He had come to her with the Apocalypse and she had essentially deemed him insane when in reality she had been the one to doom him to an eternal Hell all by herself.</p><p>She hears a plate shattered, knocked from its place where all the china was neatly stored, but it barely registers through the disgust, the horror, and the absolute anguish.</p><p>Hargreeves had been right-- Luther had been right-- they should find a way to lock her up and throw away the key after everything she’s done. All the crimes she’s committed, the torturous deeds she’s done.</p><p>She doesn’t notice how the world quakes with her, but she hears his voice cut through the tempest raging inside her. Like he’s the eye of the storm.</p><p>“Vanya.” She whips around in her seat and her expression must be pitiful, tears and all, but Five’s stoic expression melts into some mix of shock and empathy. But how could he be empathetic to her? How can anyone empathize with causing the Apocalypse and leaving their brother to rot in it?</p><p>He strides forward without hesitation or doubt, determination taking over his features as he moves towards her. She wonders what he’ll do. What was going through his head, with a brain that was over half a century old. The question shove her down into an icy numbness and the world starts to settle around them. She liked this better, this numbness, because though it left a gaping hole in her chest it didn’t feel as bad as the crushing guilt that was slowly destroying her under its pressure.</p><p>Five slides into the seat beside her at the table, hands hesitating for only a second before they reached up and brushed a few of the stray tears from her face. “Now, what’s going on?” He prods, equal parts soft suggestion and stern insistence.</p><p>She shakes her head, stray strands of dark hair falling into his face and sticking to the wet tracks that glistened with every shift in the light. “I’m sorry.” She croaks, and it sounds so pathetically pleading but she can’t care. He needs to know that she’s sorry, for everything she’s done to him.</p><p>Five’s brows twitch, furrowing just so in a show of visible confusion. “For what, Vanya?” He asks. Five had always been curt, blunt, and insistent. Demanding and persistent and almost cruel at times but he had always cared so violently for all of them that it almost didn’t matter how much of an asshole he could be. She didn’t deserve that; she never had.</p><p>“Five,” And this time she cringes at how she whimpers because she was more than that. She was. Now, however, she had been reduced to this mess. “Five I did it.”</p><p>A spark of recognition ignites in his dark eyes but Vanya knows that he doesn’t entirely understand. Knows he would never come to the same conclusion as she herself did. He would never blame her for what he’s been through, he would never be able to see what kind of horrible person she was.</p><p>“It wasn’t your fault.” He adds, his words toeing the line between sharp and soft.</p><p>She shakes her head again, “You don’t understand.” She gasps, more tears tumbling down.</p><p>“Then help me understand.”</p><p>“I ended the world,” She sobs, and despite how clearly uncomfortable he was with physical touch Five still reached out and gently rested a warm hand on her arm. A small comfort but it meant the world coming from him. She didn’t want him to comfort her, she wanted him to want her to suffer to because of what she did. “Five, I ended the world and you had to live through it.” She chokes on the words and an ugly cough sputters out of her lungs but that’s when she sees all the pieces connect in his head.</p><p>She expects him to yell, to seethe in silence as he comes to the same realization she did, but instead he scoots his chair closer and guides her gently into a tight embrace. She buries her face in his shoulder, too shocked to even try to pull away, and silently cries.</p><p>“It wasn’t your fault,” He repeats sternly, no doubt in his mind, but how could there not be? “You didn’t make me travel into the future, you surely didn’t repress your own powers or exclude yourself from the family.” He’s rubbing gentle circles between her shoulder blades as her body jerks with each quiet sob, his other hand squeezing her shoulder in yet another show of comfort. He’s tense beneath her, uncomfortable and shocked, but he doesn’t even twitch to move away. “None of it is your fault, Vanya. I’m here now, and so are you. The world is still standing. It’s okay.”</p><p>She shakes her head but he just repeats it again, “It’s okay.”</p><p>And though she doesn’t really believe him, she curls into his arms and cries until she can’t cry anymore.</p><p>And Five? Five lets her.</p>
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